Mike Pence's Chances of Beating Donald Trump, According to Polls

Former Vice President Mike Pence is officially entering the race for the Republican presidential nomination, setting him up for a head-to-head collision with former running mate Donald Trump and several other White House hopefuls who see themselves as the heirs of the conservative movement Trump helped to stoke more than five years ago.

If early poll numbers are to be believed, Pence has much work to do to make space for himself in what is becoming an increasingly saturated field that has already faced challenges contrasting their positions with those of the former president.

In addition to former administration officials like onetime U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley in the field, Pence will also have to pitch himself as a viable alternative to candidates like South Carolina Senator Tim Scott, Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson, and millionaire Vivek Ramaswamy. All support policies that largely represent the boilerplate issues embraced by Republican voters: strict laws on abortion, tight oversight of the border and the rejection of an American culture "gone woke."

But beyond the others in the race, Pence will also have to craft a pitch to voters that can steal support not only from Trump but candidates like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, whom polling shows to be the most viable direct challenger to Trump at this early juncture in the race.

Even with the stature afforded Pence as vice president, the numbers aren't too optimistic. Across all polls—conservative-biased, liberal-biased, or right down the middle—Trump is, by and large, the leader of the Republican field, with numbers showing support from more than 50 percent of likely voters in the GOP primary.

Out of the remaining half of the field, DeSantis is routinely the only candidate earning a double-digit percentage of the vote, with the support of roughly one-fifth of the Republican electorate according to polling averages compiled by aggregators like FiveThirtyEight, Real Clear Politics, and Race to the White House.

But at this point, that's not much: in a hypothetical head-to-head matchup, a May 25-30 YouGov/Yahoo News poll found DeSantis would lose to Trump by approximately 24 points in a one-on-one primary, while Pence—regularly the third-leading candidate in most polls with a weighted percentage of 5 percent across the entire field—would lose to Trump by nearly 60 percentage points.

One benefit for Pence is that it's early in the campaign, with ample time left until the primary gets into full swing. And though Trump is by and large the leader of the Republican primary field, his support isn't necessarily assured.

Newsweek reached out to Pence's team via email for comment.

A CNN poll from last month found that while 85 percent of Republican voters would be "open" to supporting DeSantis, more than half of voters said they would be willing to consider voting for Pence when considering alternatives. However, his 54 percent of "open to" respondents was still smaller than that of Scott (60 percent) and Haley (61 percent).

However, that same poll also showed most candidates are essentially seen as cookie-cutter candidates compared to Trump. Combined, candidates like Pence, Scott, Haley, and newcomer Chris Christie poll at a collective 16 percent while other pollsters, like Quinnipiac, say those candidates will likely net fewer than a double-digit share of the overall vote.

And if it was name recognition Pence was banking on, he seems to have lost his momentum. According to aggregate polling, Pence's performance in the national polls has been falling since reaching a high of 10 percentage points in September, now sitting at just under 5 percent. In that timespan, Trump, meanwhile, has only seen his support grow, now sitting at more than 50 percent.